


Iron Sharpens Iron

by broadwanime



Series: Role Reversal Series [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-25
Updated: 2013-06-25
Packaged: 2017-12-16 03:23:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/857202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broadwanime/pseuds/broadwanime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean’s orders were simple, really.  He wasn’t supposed to be anyone especially important.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Iron Sharpens Iron

**Author's Note:**

> The first story in the Role Reversal Series. I own nothing in this fic, not characters or universe or anything. Enjoy, lovelies!

Girls are made of sugar, spice, and everything nice. That’s what little girls are made of. Boys are made of snips, snails, and puppy dog tails. That’s what little boys are made of.

Angels are born of stardust and seashells and sapphires. The electricity that hums in the air before a storm, the crash of the tide, the song of a mockingbird. The rumble of a kitten’s purr and the triumphant trumpeting of an elephant. They are the spin of Saturn’s rings and the careful rotation of the moon, the ticking of a clock and the sweet violin of a grasshopper’s wings. They are everything and anything, the universe contained in the flutter of wings.

Dean could not remember when his Father made him. Once, there was darkness, and then, there was the sun and the slow creak of the Earth’s rotation, and somewhere, just before the first hummingbird, there he was.

Angels do not have forms, not in the way that we think of them. They are more like strands of light than anything else. But they can see and hear, smell, taste, and touch. Not as we do, but something beyond our comprehension.

Dean’s first memory was of the wind blowing through him and the dusty scent of rain. The droplets made strange patterns in his grace, weird musical notes and light shows. Pine trees swayed and birds chittered in the branches above. Everything was excitement and magic. Everything was bewildered to simply be alive. Such was the glory and the wonder of creation.

It used to be Dean’s fondest memory. It saw him through the dark days, through the arguments and the breaking of promises and the whispers through the Host. It saw him through the agonized shouts of his brothers and sisters, the clashing of swords and the falling lights that shone too bright to be stars. His family had fallen apart, but it was all right as long as he could remember the smell of the rain, the feeling of the water.

When Sam left, he almost broke. The youngest angel of them all, and somehow he was the only one to see how truly messed up things had become in Heaven. He was the one who had the courage to leave, and Dean…

Dean…

He was a soldier. He could not abandon his post, could not abandon **God** , no matter how his brother begged him. He just couldn’t.

And as Sam disappeared, as his long stretch of grace fizzled away from Dean’s senses, Dean glowed in the gloom of March in Oregon. He listened to the birds cheep about worms and nests, and though it wasn’t quite the same, it still soothed him. He thought it would be enough to last a few centuries more, to keep him going through the rest of eternity.

He was wrong. He was so very, very wrong.

Dean’s orders were simple, really. He was to be one of many foot soldiers in the mission. He wasn’t supposed to be anyone especially important. He’d flown to Hell and he had fought beside his family, beside Muriel and Joanna and Barachiel, himself. At some point, he turned around and there was no one left. Sometimes he wondered if that was what it would be like, at the end of all things - if he would look over his shoulder and not even the dust of rain or the creak of pine trees would greet him.

Dean kept flying, and he kept fighting. The stench of demons was worse than anything he had sensed before, a black, sweltering ooze that reminded him of the sea doused in oil and rotten flesh and sulfur and the haze of a nuclear explosion. He did not care for it, that much was certain. But it was his orders, his simple, easy orders.

The glow of the Righteous Man’s soul should have been impossible to miss, even with the tarnish of its surroundings. Dean did not expect, however, to be practically blinded by the improbable blue so bright it could have been grace. The soul was splattered with layer upon layer of spit and semen and blood and the tears of the damned, and it was still not enough to diminish its brightness.

Dean was so awed that he never saw Alastair skulking behind him. He felt the moment the blade entered his grace, an indescribable agony tearing through everything he was. Alastair loomed over the angel, long, disgusting tendrils of slime pooling atop of him. Dean was helpless, too fragile from his wound to do anything but to let it happen.

“You?” the demon hissed through his wide mouth of shark teeth. “You’re supposed to be an angel of the lord?” Alastair’s chuckles echoed in the cavern of Hell. “Oh, my word. Your father must’ve made you on an off day, don’t you think? I mean, look at you. You’re… weak. Even for an angel, you’re just _pathetic_.”

His claws played across Dean’s grace, drawing ugly patterns through the tendrils. It was torment, but Dean refused to scream. His true voice would surely tear the Righteous Man to pieces. Dean would not have a hand in destroying that too bright soul.

“I could make you stronger,” Alastair murmured. “I could take you on my rack and slice you up, make you bleed that pretty little angel grace of yours. And it is oh so very pretty.” His breath was hot against Dean, making the angel squirm even as the claws dug deeper inside of him. “You would beg for my mercy, wouldn’t you? Beg and scream and you would break, just like all the others. I could make you mine.”

Dean turned to the Righteous Man. Luminescent blue was trapped deep inside the guise of humanity, captured in long fingers and sickly skin and black hair that could probably destroy any comb it met. It whispered through the eyes, though, sang sad songs about sparks of the tempest and if you see my baby, tell her hurry home. Dean saw the agony, there, the desire to run into strong arms and the comforting scent of hard candy, to leave the bloodshed to someone else for once.

It made his grace ache. He wanted to help him, **needed** to help him. Castiel Novak did not belong in Hell. He deserved to be saved. The question was how?

Dean turned back to Alastair. The demon’s fat, purple forked tongue hung lazily from under glazed white eyes. “I could make you so strong, my little dove,” he purred.

The answer hit Dean as loud as the crash of lightning, as loud as the screams of the Host and as heavy as the weight of Alastair above him. It could very well destroy him in the process, but the alternative was to let the Righteous Man burn before his eyes.

Dean would not let that happen.

“What if you could?” he whispered.

The demon blinked, the sounds of bones crunching in the dust. “What was that?”

“What if you could? What if you had the chance to have me on your rack?”

Alastair tilted his massive head, his claws tapping atop of Dean’s grace. “Now this is interesting. An angel, offering itself to me on a silver platter.” He hissed like a displeased cat. “What’s the catch? There’s always something with you goody-two-shoes.”

Dean’s grace glowed steadily. “Let the Righteous Man go.”

The demon blinked again, then started to chuckle. “You mean Castiel, here?” He moved away from Dean for the first time, releasing the angel from his powerful grip. He knew Dean wouldn’t try anything, not now. He slithered over to Castiel, wrapping himself around his small, human form. If Dean had the energy, he would’ve smote Alastair then and there. “Why would I give up my best student?” the demon asked.

Dean rose, his grace tattered from Alastair’s talons. “What demon has had the chance at an angel?” he asked calmly. “None. Not since the Fall.” He strode purposefully towards the demon. “Besides, if you do break me, you’d simply be trading one servant for another.” He wouldn’t break. He would never move an inch, not even for the master of torture, himself. “How about it?”

Alastair turned his head back and forth from Castiel to Dean, as if he were playing some sort of game to choose between them. If the demon said no, Dean was prepared to fly, to grab ahold of the Righteous Man and soar out of Hell. They would both be battered in the process, and Dean most likely obliterated, but if that was the only way to save him, so be it.

At last, in a soft, high-pitched poisonous whisper, Alastair hissed, “Done.”

Dean’s grace sagged in relief. He did not really think he had the energy to get himself out, at least not with Castiel in tow and certainly not with thousands of demons chewing and scratching away at him. “Release him, then,” he commanded.

Alastair tapped his claws along his chin. “You really think that’s wise? Lots of other demons would simply love to… get to know our little Castiel.” His tongue ran slickly under the Righteous Man’s chin, leaving black and red ooze in its wake. “Wouldn’t it be safer just to keep him here?”

“You don’t release him, you don’t get me,” Dean snapped.

The demon raised his hands nonchalantly. “All right, all right; don’t get your halo in a twist. I merely wanted to look out for the lad. I’ve grown quite fond of him, you know.”

Dean resisted the urge to growl like a lesser being – but only by the smallest of margins. Begrudgingly, the demon was correct. Without Dean to lead the way, Castiel would have to find his own way out of perdition. There was no guarantee that the rest of the damned would allow him to pass without injury.

The angel moved forward. The Righteous Man did not look at him once. In fact, he had not even twitched throughout Dean and Alastair’s exchange. He stood with his knife still bloodied in his hands, waiting for the next soul to tear apart or for Alastair’s orders. Dean’s presence had not registered at all.

That would change in a moment. Dean closed his sight, his taste, his smell, focusing the smallest tendril of himself outward until it touched the soiled exterior of Castiel’s soul. “This will sting,” he said gently. It was the only warning he could give. He pressed forward, burning himself straight through the soul. He twisted in carefully, planting a tiny seed of grace amongst the humanity. It would protect him as he left the Pit, and it should be enough to mend his body when he returned to it.

The Righteous Man did not react to the change in his soul. He seemed to take it as if it were another torture he had to endure and not the blessing Dean had intended it to be. He had literally been touched by an angel, was chosen by God, himself, and had the brightest soul Dean had ever seen, and he still did not believe he deserved to be saved.

“Release him,” Dean rasped. He had not parted with much of his grace, but atop of his earlier injuries, he was no stronger than a fledgling.

It seemed to delight Alastair. “Oh, I am looking forward to ripping you apart,” he chuckled.

Dean flickered in warning. “Release. Him,” he repeated. “I will not ask again.”

“So serious, darling. We’ll just have to see if I can give you a sense of humor when I tear you apart.”

The demon raised his giant hand and clicked his claws together. Chains rusted apart and shattered, a groan heavier than the rest. Castiel’s face changed for the first time, first confusion and then the glory of hope and the astonishing ecstasy of freedom as he vanished away.

“Castiel Novak is saved,” Dean whispered.

He only had time for one smile before Alastair clicked his claws again. Iron settled through him, stretching him apart in various directions all equally painful. Alastair’s form shimmered before him, slick ooze melting easily into a human form. Skinny, unkempt with long, tapering fingernails that scratched against the metal of his blade. Even though he now only had thirty two teeth instead of rows upon rows of jagged edges, his smile seemed just as wide.

“Oh, my darling angel,” he sang. “We haven’t even been properly introduced, you know.”

The demon snapped his fingers and Dean’s grace coiled into flesh and bone and tired green eyes. He felt so unbelievably small, so weak and helpless. He supposed that was the point.

Alastair sauntered up to the angel, his blade playing with his day old stubble. “My name is Alastair,” he teased. “What’s yours?”

His jaw tightened as he jutted his chin forward. “I am Dean, angel of the Lord.”

Alastair gave a soft, mocking chuckle. “Well, Dean, angel of the Lord…” He leaned forward and dragged his knife under the angel’s chin. “How _will_ we pass the time?”


End file.
